The evening kicked off and we were gathered into our respective factions to be briefed before starting. We arrived by elevator, being escorted by an AI (effectively a GM, ours was Bryn who was responsible for writing the Cigani characters). For those of you have not played in the game and think that you might get the chance to one day, probably best that you don’t read any further. 🙂

There was a bit of conversation as we entered, but as with many LARPs, it’s always a little bit stifled to begin with as people come to terms with their character and the world that is being established around them. I must say that the opening was very cool, and we went through a decontamination process after being advised to wait in a partitioned area. All this was leading up to the entry into the Reunion area. Of all the set dressing I’ve ever seen at a LARP Reunion was the most spectacular, you immediately felt absorbed into a futuristic environment. I would wager that a lot of it came down to the enthusiasm and work of the whole LARP team, particularly Norman’s investment in the project and bar area set up by Sean. I don’t know exactly who was responsible for what but all the organisers put in so much work to make it an exceptionally engaging evening.

The bartender, mixing some drinks.

I spent some time fielding enquiries from people in other factions about what medical advancements the Cigani people had to offer them. I became the medical representative for our people, but for the most part I had no interest in bargaining over medical secrets as nothing seemed to solve the problem that plagued our people. A few things were vaguely in the same ball park, however I knew the solution to our ills, I just needed someone to present us with the problem so that I had an excuse to come up with the answer.

My little brother, Luke’s character (whose character name I forget but he had a limp and a cane) approached me fairly early and propositioned me to synthesize some kind of agent that would counteract the effects of a drug addiction he was suffering from. As it turns out, this is further proof that he was playing House MD, if House was ever dressed like a terrorist. I agreed, but it was something that I ended up having to resolve out of game time as I could not spare the 10 mins to give him the antidote then and there.

My evening revolved around four basic storylines:

-Marianne; meeting my estranged wife and dealing with the conflict this presented because of my feelings for Nadya.

-My dark secret, how I betrayed Nadya’s trust and the conflict about wanting to tell her the truth, but desperately fearing the consequences of revealing my true nature to my adopted people.

-Finding out a subtle way to reveal to the Cigani that their issues conceiving/having children were caused by radiation sickness. As a result of that, finding a means to cure this and in turn helping Nadya, as she desperately wanted to be able to have children.

-And finally, my involvement in the central plot. The AI’s needed 6 worthy candidates to maintain the gate system. Everyone present was compatible to varying degrees and the process involved committing your consciousness to the machine, retaining your identity, but bound forever to this device. I had the highest degree of compatibility and since the consequence of not finding enough willing candidates was the destruction of the entire facility, there was a fair amount of external pressure to submit.

The interface for the gate system, just add willing candidates...

It’s difficult to separate the plot lines out and some were even more complicated then I could ever know in character, but I will try to do it this way because I can’t remember the exact order of events. Suffice to say, this LARP was overflowing with conflict and I constantly had somewhere to be or someone to talk to.

The Marianne/Stephen storyline was so much fun. Jenni has been one of my Kapcon/LARP buddies for a number of years now and it was awesome to have the opportunity to roleplay with her again.

We spent a bunch of time avoiding each other from the outset, even though we recognised each other. Eventually, I confronted her and so began a string of awkward conversations which lasted all the way till the end of the evening. It was very Chekhovian and to an extent, Austen-like, as we would talk about such mundane things despite the fact that we had the gravity of our feelings, 500 years apart and our own pressing concerns weighing on our respective minds. initially I wasn’t sure about whether I still had feelings for her, but I got the impression that she still retained feelings for me after all this time, which I felt was confirmed when I asked whether she still kept my last name, Le Grange, which she did. I was also weighing this against my feelings for Nadya.

Marianne and Stephen, clearly we had a lot on our minds. This was one of my favorite scenes.

After we came to grips with our chance encounter and following that, Marianne’s apology for the circumstances and conflict that lead to our break-up, I settled and I would have her if she would have me. I realised that Nadya would need to know the truth about how I betrayed her and the only way she’d know is if I told her. Once she learnt this truth though, I couldn’t believe she would ever want to see me again so it was better that I disappear. However, I had to break this to her which proved much more difficult than I had anticipated.

Marianne was in a spot because she was betrothed to Alan Copeland 26th (played by Ants), current King of New London in Arboria. We had a really tense scene where he asked me to give Marianne up and to give my blessing for their upcoming nuptials. I’m sure Jenni really appreciated it when I deflected the question to her (;p), saying if this is what she wanted I’d gladly do it. I sort of got the heart in my throat feeling when I said that though, as I thought I’d lost Marianne and Nadya at that point and wished that I’d been more assertive. Marianne responded appropriately and fled the room which was very awesome.

This previous scene was also complicated by some news that Farkes delivered to me that basically got me off the hook with Nadya. Completely blindsided by that news, I was a bit of a wreck. My final moment of the game was a powerful one, which I will mention after I’ve reveled the Cigani side of my storyline.

As mentioned, my major conflict within the Cigani was Farkes’ blackmail and the secret I kept from Nadya. From the start of the evening, Farkes would direct barbed remarks at me when he was talking about what it was to be a Cigani. I can’t remember any specific comment, but I quickly came to loathe him and the power he had over me and the way he actively sought to isolate me.

Over the course of the evening I spoke with some fondness to Aishe and Nadya and it became apparent that Nadya had some feelings for me. I remember pleasant, welcoming smiles from Nadya and I remember how they cut me up a little bit each time.

Over the course of the evening, the AI’s scanned all the attendees with a sort of scanning devices which determined how suitable a candidate was for assimilation with the gate system. It became apparent that myself and many of the Cigani were perfect matches which lead to some pressure from our leader to get more than one Cigani to volunteer. The thought was that if we had more Cigani in the machine, we would have more sway over the gates. One of the Cigani, Mihai, got his hands on one of the scanning devices which could scan a person at a genetic level. Completely by coincidence, Mihai came up to me while I was having a conversation and dropped a bomb, revealing to me that we were all heavily irradiated.

This was excellent news for me, as I pretended to have the sudden realisation that I could treat what was causing the Cignai’s infertility and notified Count Andrei, the leader of our people. This hypothesis was confirmed by the fact that over the course of the evening our radiation levels were steadily dropping, the only side-effect of course was that Cigani would presumably resume aging from each of their apparent ages.

With that taken care of, I was having to deal with how to resolve my guilt with Nadya. I confronted Farkes and told him that Nadya had to know. I thought Farkes was going to be a bastard and play the blackmail card. That was something that I really didn’t care about anymore, but instead he convinced me that Nadya was better off not knowing, that it would destroy her given her currently fragile state. Damnit! I didn’t expect that response at all. So the only alternative I could think of was for me to depart, as I could not bear the guilt which was made worse every time I saw her. Farkes tried to talk me out of it, trying to convince me to live with the guilt and stay with the Cigani. I couldn’t do that, but Farkes once again weakened my resolve to confront Nadya.

The next thing I heard from Farkes was during the conversation I mentioned previously with Marianne and Alan. He burst in and explained that he had revealed the truth to Nadya and had taken all the blame himself. Damnit! Once again more news that threw me right off! I could be with Nadya? But Marianne had returned, I couldn’t leave her again could I?!

I shook myself out of that one pretty quickly, I still had to tell Nadya my part in her betrayal, I couldn’t live with that burden anymore. Which lead to the final series of events and a resolution the played out really well, even if it was a mixture of joy and sadness. I can’t remember the exact order of events, but here it is in a logical order.

In the main room, Marianne came to me and told me that Alan had left Reunion and asked what I intended to do. I responded that I wanted to be with her, but that I had unfinished business on the Cigani homeworld. I still owed them a cure to the radiation sickness they would suffer from while living there. Then Nadya approached us, smiling at me as usual. She explained that she had found out that Aishe was her daughter and I’m pretty sure she was about to express how she felt about me… I interrupted her at that point. I told her of my part to play in her betrayal and that I did so knowingly. I made no effort to justify my actions, just coldly and plainly, told her what I had done. That was pretty heart-wrenching, but I couldn’t complicate things any further and she dashed away.

I was still uncertain about what me and Marianne would do, but the Countess Mala noticed my anxiety and asked what the problem was. I explained that I could not return with the Cigani, that Marianne was my wife and that I was not a Cigani and had been deceiving them for all this time. To my surprise, she implored me to return with them and openly invited Marianne to come with us too. At some point during all this, me and Marianne embraced after all the trials we’d been through. The final in character words that I remember were from James (Count Andrei) where he explained that by my deception of his people, I had proven myself as much a Cigani as the rest of them.

*phew*

Roll credits and get some final photos taken. If you made it this far, thanks for taking the time to read this epic post 🙂 I also won the prize for most LARP nominations, which was totally unexpected and somewhat of an honor given how awesome everyone was at the LARP. Outside of what was my occupying me during the game, I was guilty of eaves dropping on some really entertaining conversations that other people were having, it was all so great!

On a final note, I mentioned that there were times when people would strike up a conversation with me and all I could think of was ‘Oh gawd, I really need to be speaking to someone ‘x’ right now, I don’t have time for this’ which is a testament to how much I had going on. And to those people who fit in the above category, thanks for striking up a conversation with me, looking back on it those little conversations I had really rounded out my experience and it was great to interact with so many amazing, different personalities despite how occupied I was 🙂

PS. Huge shout out to the GMs and the support team! A big thanks to Bryn for writing me such an intense, awesome character (in the end I never even had to rely on my badass factor!)

I’ve yet to do a proper account of the fun that I had Kapcon this year; but it also occurred to me that the LARP is usually one of the major highlights for me and coupled with the fact that I recently participated in The Black Hart of Camelot, LARPing is what’s on my mind at the moment.

Prior to this year, I pretty much only ever got involved in one LARP a year and that was at Kapcon. I would justify this based on the fact that I loved the larger scale LARPs where everyone puts in effort to bring awesome costumes and character portrayals to the game, The LARP crew doing the same to bring the scenario to life with set dressing and an excellently written game. For some years now, this has been true but in recent times, more and more opportunities have started to pop up. I can safely say that my hunger for awesome LARPs has increased substantially!

I’m still a bit picky about what I’ll sign up for, I tend to like LARPs with quite an emotional or heroic quotient and failing that, the setting and other people involved also tend to influence my decision. This year, there are four major LARPing opportunities that I’m interested in so far. Two that I’ve played in already: Kapcon: Reunion and The Black Hart of Camelot. The next two games I’m involved in are coming up in the next few months and I’m really looking forward to them, these being: Masquerade on Fleet Street and St. Wolfgang’s Vampire Hunters: Revelations

To each event, I’ll give some consideration in the next few posts that you’ll see here. But for now (and long overdue) is the first half of my report from the Reunion LARP. This is mostly just the set up as my character had a whole bunch going on to take into account before going into the actual evening.

Reunion took place in a Sci-fi setting where many different nations had populated the galaxy as a result of a certain of technological advancements. What connected them all were a series of interstellar gates controlled by AI that had mysteriously closed down and left each of these nations isolated for 500 years. Each nation was presumably suffering from their own problems and the Reunion LARP is set when the gates open for the first time and the first delegations from each nation are reunited.

My character was Stephen Le Grange, an adventurous, humanitarian doctor who travelled the galaxy helping those in need. Prior to the gates closing down, I was married to Marianne Ambrose (Jenni), a beautiful woman with a particularly amazing secret. Her family had learnt the secret of immortality by way of gene therapy/magic science. I was fortunate to have also been given this treatment after our marriage and together we travelled around being dashing and awesome.

After that, Marianne got fed up/jealous of the fact that I spent my time focusing on the plights of others and not on her. We fought with each other more and more, our relationship becoming somewhat bitter. My work was something that I was unwilling to compromise on and we agreed to spend some time apart.

That’s when the gates shut down and I ended up trapped on the Cigani homeworld. In a nutshell, the Cigani people are pretty much space gypsies. They are quite an insular society and if I was going to be accepted as one of them, I would need to become one of them. So I became Mircea, a helpful and reliable doctor. The Cigani people were smugglers, traders and scavengers, never staying in one place too long and always managing to stay one step ahead of the authorities. This inspired the expression ‘The luck of the Cigani’. When I came to the Cigani, it was after they were ‘gifted’ a big hunk of rock to call home, as an attempt to tame these allusive and trouble making people. The hunk of rock, orbiting a gas giant, proved to be an incredible source of wealth and they became very rich. They also mysteriously stopped aging.

When the gates shut, the Cigani thought this was the best thing ever as it meant that invaders or disgruntled debtors could not touch them, but it quickly became apparent that the negatives far out weighed the positives. The people soon found out that what was causing their eternal youth, also prevented them from bearing children. The Cigani homeworld also suffered and it became difficult to sustain crops and they could not trade for food now that the gates had shut. As result the Cigani population dwindled dramatically over the 500 year period before the gates would re-open. It was literally at the point where the handful of people from the photo below were all that was left of the Cigani, and I wasn’t even a true Cigani!

From the right hand side front, people in my story: Aishe, Nadya and Farkes. I'm there in the back!

I had a few major concerns going into the LARP, most were to do with my foster homeworld.

-I knew why it was that the Cigani people ceased aging. It was an effect of the radiation from the gas giant and this effect was also directly responsible for them not being able to bear children. Being immortal, I blended in quite well which was very fortunate! I could not mention this to anyone else however and I certainly couldn’t offer a treatment as this would raise too many questions about who I was and would likely out me. The consequence of this I feared, would be my death. Apparently Cigani are crazy like that.

-I had developed some feelings for a Cigani girl, Nadya. I had met her some time ago when she was in a bad way and with child. Her brother Farkes convinced me that she was drug addled and did not have the capacity to raise a child. Farkes told me that he knew of someone who could care for the child. To this end, I delivered the baby and handed her over to Farkes. I told Nadya that the girl had died during child-birth. When I came to the Cigani people I was shocked to see that Farkes has adopted the young girl as her own daughter Aishe and when I confronted him over this, he effectively blackmailed me into keeping this secret from Nadya. If I reveled our part in this deception to Nadya, Farkes would reveal my secret. I wasn’t sure whether I started to fall in love with Nadya, whether I felt sorry for her circumstance or whether there was something more to it. I knew for sure that I had to look after her though.

-The thought of seeing Marianne again intrigued me. I didn’t know whether she would still want me after all this time, but given that we were at such odds when we left each other, surely not…

-I knew other bits and pieces too, but my evening at Reunion was mostly focused on how to help my people and how unbearable it was to keep such an awful secret from Nadya.

How it all played out in the end was all so incredibly emo and amazing, but you’ll have to wait for my next post, so tune in again soon!

Towards the end of last year I got involved with Pole-Dancing at The Studio in Wellington. This largely came about because of attending performances that my lovely girlfriend was involved with (shows that were mostly focused on Burlesque and Pole routines).

Actual pole dancing is very cool and is quite a different beast then what you may immediately think of, strippers and strip clubs being the more common associations. I’ve never been to a strip club and now that I’ve seen burlesque and pole dancing routines, I’d never want to. You want to see naked bods that you can’t touch, look up some web-cam girls on teh interwebs. If you want to see quality of performance, awesome feats of strength, grace and acrobatics, look up some *good* pole dancers.

What sparked my interest in getting involved was going out to a show in Petone with some of Sarah’s friends from the Studio. It was a really fun night out and the people I was with were all involved with dancing. So when it was announced that they were gong to run an ‘amateur’ pole competition where the audience were invited to compete, the people that I was drinking with basically ended up representing the competition. They were a bit drunk and there were some falls, but they certainly made it look like a whole bunch of fun.

I’m really obsessed with music, and by association movement and choreography. My thoughts tend to enjoy taking a piece of music and then choreographing some kind of action sequence, dramatic moment, or fight scene in whatever context my mind tends to be focusing on at the time. Usually whatever RPG has most recently been occupying my thoughts. A number of the dance papers that I took at university were answered with similar thoughts and there were a couple of projects where I really got to let my imagination loose on piecing together a theoretical dance recital.

I find myself doing similar things, only now with potential pole routines in mind. Of course, they tend to be pretty ambitious and far beyond any skill I may hope to develop myself. But it means that I listen to music and will be able to recognise pretty quickly whether any given track would be appropriate for a pole routine. Basically, pole has weaseled it’s way into my unconscious reaction to music that I’m listening to. This particular phenomenon actually happened before I started doing anything myself, so I figured I ought to at least give it a go.

But what’s it all about? As a boy with limited flexibility I thought I was a bit daft to want to get into pole. I mean, a lot of what you do is just gymnastics on a vertical plane. However flexibility is not quite as pivotal for guys as our strength tends to lie in what we an do with our upper body. Which is not to dismiss the importance of flexibility, but I’ve got to work with what I have and work on what I don’t have. What I’ve found so far is that it’s really good for building strength through your abs/core and upper body, we also tend to do conditioning which reinforces that. When I don’t have to run away for a bus, we also do a fair amount of stretching at the end of the class, which I can only imagine is helping to improve on my limited flexibility.

Another aspect of pole which is not immediately apparent to the untrained eye, is the amount of bruising one must experience as you become accustomed to staying on and moving around the pole. Anytime a new part of your body is being heavily utilized to support your weight while you are in the air, it is quite likely that bruising will follow.

For me, it was a slow build to get where I am today. I’ve got a few moves in my repertoire but I’ve got a long way to go yet before you’ll get to see me outside of the studio. If you want to see what awesome male or female pole dancing looks like, there’s plenty to see on the Youtubes. Also, if anyone has any favorite videos and wants to share, post a link in the comments.

If you want to see some mental pole dancing, the 2009 Miss Pole Dance World winner, Felix Cane is always guaranteed to impress.

And if you’re curious about what it is we do, then please check out the linky at the top of the page for The Studio Facebook page. We’ve got an Open Pole Night coming up this Friday evening where you can have a couple of drinks, see some folk in action and try it out for yourself. It usually starts at 7pm and goes till around 10. There’s a $5.00 entry fee too.

In an effort to kick my regular blogging back off, I wanted to put up a quick post with all the things you can expect to hear about in the not to distant future. It’s been a pretty hectic start to the year but there is heaps of awesome stuff going on and then some not so awesome stuff too.

So, here’s a list of what’s coming up for all my honchos out there:

-Kapcon! Holy crap what a kickass RPing event, constantly justifying why I’ve been every year for the last 11 years.
-Kapcon LARP! This deserves its own write up given that it was a pretty epic occasion.
-LARPing that I’m getting involved in this year, and LARPs that I’m already signed up for like Dark Hart of Camelot and St Wolfgang’s Vampire Hunters.
-The other RPing games that I’m getting into this year. My Exalted campaign ‘Red Sun’, Luke’s Eberron game which is kicking off this weekend and hopefully getting back into our lapsed Warhammer Fantasy game with James. I’m sure others will present themselves too.
-Getting involved in pole-dancing towards the end of last year and what that’s all about.
-More music! I’ve come across some awesome stuff which I just know you’re going to love! At the moment I’m amped about BT’s new album These Hopeful Machines which is out here in about a week and already out in the States.
-And likely anything else that I’m bound get unreasonably excited about.

All this blogging going on has got me motivated, I’ll cross post when I’ve got them updating hook ups for you.

Well to me anyway… Todays post consists of a two tracks from two bands that I know absolutely nothing about, but have stumbled across in my various travels. At this stage I plan to acquire more knowledge and obtain some of their albums but this is what we have for the time being. Both these entries have an indie bent but likenesses differ pretty significantly.

I’ve listened to a few of their tracks since first hearing them at work. This track is one of my favorites and so far I’ve been able to listen to it over and over. I’d compare them to Athlete or Snow Patrol but they defintatley have their own unique flavour. I can’t seem to get enough of the marching rhythm they’ve employed for this track.

Another amazing wee gem, and suprisingly I discovered this track from playing Saints Row 2 for PS3. I can’t think of exactly who these guys remind me of, but they have some good friends in Bloc Party and Incubus. Strange combo I know, but the guitar definitely smacks of Mike Einziger’s style. This one has a truly addictive quality to it, which has only left me wanting more.

Which is what I’ve been doing while I listen to my fun music pick of the week, Los Campesinos!. If you’ve not heard of them, they are this ridiculously fun, seven piece, indie pop band from Cardiff, Wales. They play the kind of music which is best served live to maximize the bopping potential. Yes, bopping, everyone does it (those who don’t wish that they did but instead must find solace within their empty empty souls).

I’ve been listening to them alot via Youtube channels at work and deicided to pick up an album tonight, so I got their first one Hold On Now, Youngster which is currently banging along to this post. To sum up it up as succinctly as possible; it’s racy, bangy, charming, happy (in style, not necessarily in the individual song content) and a little bizarre. I don’t think I’ve had as much fun with the lyrics of a song while listening to genuinely great music at the same time.

Anyway, the album is proving a win at the moment. Why don’t you check out some of their tracks on Youtube, their videos tend to mirror their style incredibly well:

Well; I typed out a big long blog review about The National which I was quite proud of, but then I managed to delete the entire thing. Which is the perfect icing to the cake considering I was having a pretty crappy day and was wondering around this evening with the overwhelming feeling that I wasn’t creating anything at all of lasting worth.

Thanks to a few fast and clumsy fingers, I still have that feeling. And because I put heaps of thought and time into gathering links and providing some interesting insights, you’re not going to get anything else out of me tonight.

I think at this point it’s best to take a look and see if anything positive has come out of today.

I think I’ve mastered the art of making delicious guacamole.

It’s sad, that’s about the only thing I’ve felt particularly proud of all day except for my lost post.

So the last week has seen an upheaval of my normal weekly routines, this is because I’ve moved into a new place. As of Friday night passed, Myself and Conan are installed in Sefton St, Wadestown. Some of you may know the place as Luke and Sam’s old Wellington flat, so those people will know where to find us.

It’s been busy trying to get everything organised that we will need to live (the problem with previously living in a flat which was fully stocked), but it’s all worked out in the end and we even promptly had internet and power sorted. My older brother was a huge help with the moving aspect of things on Friday, lending his driving skills to our cause. My mum helped out a whole bunch on Saturday by taking me around town to pick up the majority of the things necessary to have a working kitchen.

I still need to get hold of a heater and laundry hamper; for the flat we still need to get hold of dehumidifier and some seating for the lounge area. Currently our lounge consists of a giant pillow, and a not so giant pillow. Otherwise, it’s looking good at the moment.

So once again you need to suffer through my excuses for not giving you a music update (to be fair, the 48 hour Film Festival stole an entire weekend too!). In my next entry I’m going to be talking about an old favourite, Snow Patrol and a band that I’m currently digging, The National. Stay tuned for that in the not too distant future….

Over the recent months I’ve become somewhat of a music whore. I’ve been finding it really rewarding just to expose myself to a variety of different bands on the off chance that I might like what I hear. It’s been pretty successful and I’ve liked a lot of what I’ve heard so far.

We all have our absolute favorite of bands, the kind of obsession where any of the following apply: We must collect their entire musical catalogue, see them live whenever it’s at all practical, watch TV shows or rubbish movies just to see one of their tracks used and then discuss whether or not it was used appropriately, constantly talk about how awesome they are to all your friends (not noticing them rolling their eyes in unison).

I feel this way about a couple of bands, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult for me to answer the question of ‘what music/bands do you like?’ in anything less then an essay. I think this is a good thing, a really good thing. I’ve always considered that having a very diverse range of interests make you a much more interesting person. It also feels good to know that what you are currently listening to has been informed by your own investigation into awesome music, or otherwise having received recommendations from alternate sources to whatever happens to be in the top 10 charts.

I keep meaning to post more often, but that doesn’t always pan out. From this point I’m going to post at least once a week with my favorite album for the week as well as one of my long standing favorites. So if you are looking for something awesome to listen to, check back here on occasion for some inspiration.

You could also be hip and develop your own musical tastes by killing some time at Last.fm (or other such sites). Alternatively you could check out this fun little site that creates maps of similar music: Tuneglue. Just enter in a band you like and then you can expand it to show a web of 5 or 6 similar artists. Crikes! You say that you already know one of the similar artists in the web?! Expand that to show even more links to new bands! 🙂